A Novel Method for Observing Tumor Margin in Hepatoblastoma Based on Microstructure 3D Reconstruction

Abstract

Objective: We investigated three-dimensional (3 D) reconstruction for the assessment of the tumor margin microstructure of hepatoblastoma (HB). Methods: Eleven surgical resections of childhood hepatoblastomas obtained between September 2018 and December 2019 were formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded, serially sectioned at 4 μm, stained with hematoxylin and eosin (every 19th and 20th section stained with alpha-fetoprotein and glypican 3), and the digital images of all sections were acquired at 100× followed by image registration using the B-spline based method with modified residual complexity. Reconstruction was performed using 3 D Slicer software. Results: The reconstructed orthogonal 3 D images clearly presented the internal microstructure of the tumor margin. The rendered 3 D image could be rotated at any angle. Conclusions: Microstructure 3 D reconstruction is feasible for observing the pathological structure of the HB tumor margin.

Keywords:

• hepatoblastoma
• pediatrics
• 3D reconstruction
• pathology
• tumor

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest in this work.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Qingdao Civic Science and Technology Program (Grant No. 17-3-3-8-nsh).